When Life Gives You AI, Will You Turn It Into A Market for Lemons? Understanding How Information Asymmetries About AI System Capabilities Affect Market Outcomes and Adoption

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Erlei, Alexander, Cau, Federico, Georgiev, Radoslav, Kumar, Sagar, Bizer, Kilian, Gadiraju, Ujwal
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Erlei, Alexander
Cau, Federico
Georgiev, Radoslav
Kumar, Sagar
Bizer, Kilian
Gadiraju, Ujwal
author_facet Erlei, Alexander
Cau, Federico
Georgiev, Radoslav
Kumar, Sagar
Bizer, Kilian
Gadiraju, Ujwal
contents AI consumer markets are characterized by severe buyer-supplier market asymmetries. Complex AI systems can appear highly accurate while making costly errors or embedding hidden defects. While there have been regulatory efforts surrounding different forms of disclosure, large information gaps remain. This paper provides the first experimental evidence on the important role of information asymmetries and disclosure designs in shaping user adoption of AI systems. We systematically vary the density of low-quality AI systems and the depth of disclosure requirements in a simulated AI product market to gauge how people react to the risk of accidentally relying on a low-quality AI system. Then, we compare participants' choices to a rational Bayesian model, analyzing the degree to which partial information disclosure can improve AI adoption. Our results underscore the deleterious effects of information asymmetries on AI adoption, but also highlight the potential of partial disclosure designs to improve the overall efficiency of human decision-making.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_21650
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When Life Gives You AI, Will You Turn It Into A Market for Lemons? Understanding How Information Asymmetries About AI System Capabilities Affect Market Outcomes and Adoption
Erlei, Alexander
Cau, Federico
Georgiev, Radoslav
Kumar, Sagar
Bizer, Kilian
Gadiraju, Ujwal
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
AI consumer markets are characterized by severe buyer-supplier market asymmetries. Complex AI systems can appear highly accurate while making costly errors or embedding hidden defects. While there have been regulatory efforts surrounding different forms of disclosure, large information gaps remain. This paper provides the first experimental evidence on the important role of information asymmetries and disclosure designs in shaping user adoption of AI systems. We systematically vary the density of low-quality AI systems and the depth of disclosure requirements in a simulated AI product market to gauge how people react to the risk of accidentally relying on a low-quality AI system. Then, we compare participants' choices to a rational Bayesian model, analyzing the degree to which partial information disclosure can improve AI adoption. Our results underscore the deleterious effects of information asymmetries on AI adoption, but also highlight the potential of partial disclosure designs to improve the overall efficiency of human decision-making.
title When Life Gives You AI, Will You Turn It Into A Market for Lemons? Understanding How Information Asymmetries About AI System Capabilities Affect Market Outcomes and Adoption
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.21650